50 Surprisingly Simple Ways to Promote Your Book

How can I promote my book?

If there’s one question that is eternal and ongoing in our author community, then it’s how to sell more books.

Sales are always on our mind and wherever we are in the bestseller chart, we look a little enviously at those above us.

In this article, we have ideas and solutions for you — 50 of them in fact — which should be more than enough ways to promote your book.

Promoting your book, isn’t all about the launch. Launches are designed around getting your book into a bookshop — and keeping it there; whereas with digital books, your book is always in stock — and therefore your timeline for promotion is much longer.

Which means you can take it one chunk at a time. I put these 50 suggestions together so that you can work through the ones that interest you, one at a time. There’s no need to do it all at once, and there’s plenty here to suit all authors!

Enjoy.

50 (and more) ways to promote your book

Tweet about it.

Make a book trailer.

Ask your readers to send in images of them with your book and then pin them on Pinterest. (people love the human connection)

Comment on threads in Facebook groups or on other people’s threads to build your reputation as an expert.

Write a press release for PRWeb. It’s a great way to get some backlinks to your site and maybe even some press interest!

Do a presentation at a local meetup group. Don’t ‘sell’, just give great information, and make sure to have some books to hand in case people ask.

A Goodreads giveaway is one of my favourite ways to promote your book, generate some interest and also to get some reviews. The giveaways only work with print books although there are things you can do with your digital book. And it’s good to know that the reviewers can be a little more harsh than on Amazon (so prepare yourself!), but it’s well worth the effort!.

Send an email to your list. Give them a reason to buy — like maybe they could send you the receipt and you’ll put on a special webinar or teleseminar?

Run a Facebook ad but make sure it’s closely themed around time or an event — maybe you have a Christmas recipe book and just before Christmas you run an ad targeted at foodie groups.

Create a discussion on https:///www.quora.com. Ask questions, engage users, DON’T make it just a pitch for your book. If you are keyword savvy then use keywords in your post title and content so that it will show up on the search engines and give you ongoing promotional returns.

Get more reviews! (more reviews will help your Amazon ranking).

Create a URL forward that directs people to your Amazon page. Use this as your “main website” in your book and whenever you’re talking about your books. (for example mysite.com/bookname and forward this to your amazon page).

Do as much guest posting as you can and refer to your book in the author box (or use that URL forwarding tip just above this one!).

Create a bunch of $0.99 books that are full of quality. Use these as tasters for your other books — people will take a chance for 99c and if they like your content they’ll be back.

Get some fun, slightly silly, videos done on fiverr in the hope they might get shared and go viral.

Put a link to your book in your email signature (and if you’re a bestselling author, then make sure you say that!).

Don’t enable the “Digital Rights Management” option in your kdp dashboard. Yes you might find your book being given away on free sites but more sharing = more people know about you…

Start a podcast (or better yet, get on someone else’s podcast).

All those great reader images you asked for — get people to post them on Facebook and tag you. It’s a great way of letting their friends know about you.

Create an Amazon associates account and add an image of your book and a link back to Amazon on your website (and as well as your royalties you might also get a few extra pennies from the associates programme!).

Run a big charity fundraiser so that for every book sold on a certain day or a certain week you give all or part of the profits to a charity of your choice (or better yet, run a fundraiser and then send everyone who donates a free pdf of your book – you won’t make money directly from this but it’s all about promoting you and your book).

Run a contest or a giveaway for your book from your website or Facebook page using an app like https://woobox.com/, https://www.shortstack.com/, https://www.rafflecopter.com/ or https://www.wildfireapp.com/ (there are others — just do a search for Facebook contests or giveaway contests). There are lots of rules and regulations around contests depending on where you live but if you use an app they will help guide you through this. You can do this with print or digital versions of your book and remember just to double check with your distributor or your publisher that what you are doing is OK with them).

Get your book translated into one of the widely spoken languages like Spanish or German to increase your sales reach.

Put something inside your book that encourages people to sign up for your email list. You then have a list to promote your next book to! If you can’t think of one then just create a list for people who want to get pre-publication copies to help you proof or review your content and to get you early reviews?

Contribute advice and ideas to LinkedIn groups and make sure you have a section of your profile that talks about your book (and tells people where to buy it).

Write an in-depth blog post on a topic related to or covered in your book, and then reference and link to your book in the post and at the end.

Create a series of YouTube videos where the author sits reading small sections of the book. Put the URL in the description below the video. This is a good way of getting taster content out. Or do some readings and have someone video those. Or interview some readers — no shortage of ideas here…

Start a Facebook group (or a Goodreads group) for your book or your topic. These are really valuable places to connect, get ideas and even get great content for your next book.

Hire people from Fiverr to post information on your free days to the ever-growing list of sites that promote free books. This frees up your time to write more books…

Get as many video testimonials as you can post these to your book’s YouTube Channel again with URL links to where people can buy your book. You can also upload these videos to Facebook and to your amazon author central page.

If you have a WordPress blog, use the “Ad Rotator” plugin to rotate your book or books on your sidebar. You can use your own image or use the “Click Here to Look Inside” image that Amazon provides.

Use discussion forums on your topic, or even places like yahoo answers, to get on front of people who want to know what you know. Make sure you have a link to your book in your signature. Some forums will let you do announcements so you can let the group know when you launch. And of not then use forums as a place to find beta-readers or early reviewers. Ask for volunteers to read your book and give you comments or reviews. Better than asking your friends and family!

Run a Facebook event when you are having a free promotional day (or days) on kdp. Or set-up a launch event. Make sure you have enough critical mass to do this otherwise the event can look very empty. This might be a great thing to do for a second or subsequent book when you already have a reader base — or a first book if you have a really strong marketing strategy and some support to get you out there and get you noticed.

Add resources and extra goodies at the back of the book. Because this also increases the overall length of your book, the reader will see more than 10% content when they click the “look inside” feature which will help you sell more books because they can see how great your book is.

If you have an email list then create an autoresponder sequence filled with stories based on a three-step-sequence… first one is 100% content, second has content, but also let’s people understand the problem your book solves, the third one is a straight up promotion for your book.

Do a book signing the traditional way — arrange this with a local book store or a book festival or even an event — maybe you have a food related book that would do well at a food festival? Or a children’s book at a children’s summer activity centre. Or a sport-related book at a sporting event? Think a little outside the box on this about where your potential readers might be and engage them with a free bonus offering like a sticker or a USB stick with some audio content on it… sky’s the limit on this one!

Create an event on Goodreads — you can invite people just like you would to a Facebook event. This is a great strategy to link with a virtual book signing, a virtual book tour, or a free promotional event.

Do a Squidoo “lens” on a few of the tips from your book. You can also then link your social media but pinning your lens to Pinterest and sharing on Google+ for example.

Run a virtual book tour where you have a pre-arranged series of guest posts on book blogs or blogs in your topic area. Post once a day for a number of days — why not be bold and aim for thirty days?! Just like a real book tour you want to build excitement, offer prizes or make the content build day by day so that your readers have a good reason to follow you around and to bring their friends along — which of course grows your following and your readership. Whenever you’re doing a guest post or asking other people to promote you, make sure you’re generous with “what’s in it for them” — a win-win-win (you, your host and your readers) will work better for everyone.

Create a ning community or a forum where your readers can connect, share ideas, and talk about your book.

Create short presentations and put them on SlideShare.

Run a google hangout (using your slides from SlideShare!).

And then upload the recording of your hangout to YouTube (google seems to be optmising YouTube search results so that hangouts get extra points in the algorithms).

Run an ebook signing — yes a digital signature with some kind of authography app. This is a new and growing field so you might need to run a google search for the best one. Hold virtual events just like you’d hold physical events — on a Google hangout, a webinar, a Facebook event. Have giveaways and prizes to keep people on the line and engaged and to make them want to spread news of your events.

Take your book along to craft fairs, vendor fairs, wedding fairs — anywhere that people who are interested in the same topic as you are writing on might hang out. And who knows what wider connections will come from that… maybe someone will contact you to speak, or to consult with them. Go with an open mind and see where it leads.

Create a movement around your book. What’s your story — is it your personal story? Maybe you’re battling depression? Or an illness? Or maybe you can be the voice of a group? Help bring together or get attention for people who may get ignored or marginalised in today’s society. Or maybe you want to campaign for something? Healthier food in schools. Better regulation of pesticides. Make the book more than just a book and use all the methods we’ve talked about to get the word out.

These are just fifty(one) ways to promote your book that came from the Author Unlimited community. If you have more ideas then post them over on Facebook and I’d be happy to add them in.

Or you can browse the most recent 100 of our high quality, free articles by clicking here.

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